Custodial, gardening, security and law enforcement personnel often place temporary, high-visibility warning signs or markers in areas where hazardous conditions are present, such as wet or freshly waxed floors, potholes, broken glass, accidents, spilled liquids, and the like, to warn traffic passing by or through the affected area of the existence, nature and/or location of the hazardous condition.
Conventional warning signs typically take the form of portable, free-standing cones, pyramids or two-sided, A-frame or “sandwich board” type signs that, to some extent, can be stacked, folded, collapsed or disassembled after use and stored in a more compact form for future reuse. Examples of such signage can be found in the patent literature in, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,047,681 to T. Perelli et al.; 6,199,504 to D. Freeman; and, 5,199,375 to M. Johson.
In some warning sign designs, compressed springs are used to force the legs of the frame of the sign apart when the sign is opened for deployment, such that the sign pops open for use when the stored force of the springs is released. The springs, typically helical or torsional springs, are attached to one another and/or to legs of the frame by various connecting and structural parts. However, designs incorporating coil springs and numerous associated spring connecting parts can be relatively complex, and hence expensive, to fabricate and assemble.
A simpler, less-costly, more easily assembled sign support structure that uses fewer parts is therefore desirable to control the costs of parts and assembly, reduce price, and provide greater reliability.